SC, >> all about space, satellites <<
My dad was an engineer in that area, covert space programs, and even after retiring 25 years ago there are still things he can't talk about. The space aspect is where the US presumably has the biggest edge, but the more dependent you are on satellites the more vulnerable you may be also, so it's a double edged sword.
The submarine based missiles are what made MAD/Mutual Assured Destructon possible because they were largely invulnerable, and would survive to retaliate even if your own land based missiles were all destroyed in a first strike. The submarines are what kept the peace thru the Cold War and made a first strike strategy a losing proposition.
So if both sides had a large ballistic submarine force, as was the case during the Cold War, neither side has an incentive to launch a first strike. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian submarine force was decimated from 250 submarines down to almost nothing, and has recovered to approx 50 today, and Putin has been building more. Most of those 50 are not ballistic missile subs and approx 1/2 are not operational at any given time, but if only a few ballistic subs are in position and survive to launch their missiles, they could destroy dozens of US cities. So therein lies the rub.
All Russian subs are tracked and shadowed by a US killer sub when they leave port. During the Cold War the Russian subs, like the US', had the option of sitting back in reserve during a US first strike, but today they would have to launch their missiles immediately before being destroyed by the US killer sub. So it's a hair trigger situation, which is what the original M.A.D. doctrine sought to avoid.
The other big change has been rise of the Neocons, once called the 'basement crazies' during the Reagan administration. They were strongly against the détente strategy during the Cold War, and there is little doubt we would have had WW III if the Neocons had been running US policy back then. The Dr. Strangelove character in Kubrick's 1964 film was based on Leo Strauss, the Neocon 'godfather' from the University of Chicago (where he taught Paul Wolfowitz).
These people believe they can win a nuclear war with Russia by launching a first strike, and they consider millions of US casualties as acceptable if it eliminates Russia as an obstacle to their goal of a NWO/world government dominated by them. They were the reason for the hyper aggressive US foreign policy under Bush/Cheney, and the Neocons have made a resurgence in Obama's 2nd term and will likely dominate the Hillary years.
